awareness

How did I ever find things to write about before social media? Recently, someone on Tumblr asked whether eating disorder prevention and awareness efforts do more harm than good. In other words, can attempting to prevent eating disorders actually contribute to their development? Good question, I thought. I’ve often wondered about this myself, especially in light of some emerging studies suggesting that “healthy eating” campaigns may actually contribute to unhealthy (restrictive) behaviours around food in school children. So off I went to scour the literature. I came up with a number of hits, but surprisingly few from the past few years. With this recent silence in mind, I will look specifically at a meta-analysis by Stice, Shaw & Marti published in 2007 that highlights some of the characteristics of effective prevention programs and comment on some of the potential pitfalls of prevention.

This is a follow-up to my last post on what I think can be improved in how we talk about eating disorders in the media and in ED communities. If you haven’t read my last post, I strongly recommend doing so before reading this one. My focus in this post will be on what individuals with a history of EDs and ED organizations can do to improve how eating disorders are perceived by the general public.

(Sidenote on my last post: I feel I didn’t emphasize enough that I used Emma Woolf’s quote as an example and a starting point. I’m confident I’ve made the same blunders that I am now speaking about. It is okay. I think the important thing is to think about our future actions, as opposed to dwelling on the past. My goal isn’t to single anyone out. Woolf is not the first, the last, or … Continue reading →

I’m going to do something different today. I’m going to talk about some of the problems I see in how eating disorders are discussed by some media organizations, ED awareness groups, and ED advocates.

This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list of everything that’s wrong (and there will be a follow-up). It is my personal opinion and I strongly encourage readers to leave comments if you disagree with me or feel that I’m missing something important.

I saw this quote on tumblr two days ago:

Anorexia is a young person’s game and I don’t have the time or energy to play any more.

This quote is amazing for all the wrong reasons. It is so wrong, so harmful, and embodies so much of what’s wrong with mainstream ED discourse. It was written by Emma Woolf. I traced the quote back to this document put out by the UK organization … Continue reading →

Definitioner

precise (precision)

in statistics: a measure of the likelihood of random errors in the results of a study, meta-analysis or measurement; the greater the precision, the less random error; confidence intervals around the estimate of effect from each study are one way of expressing precision, with a narrower confidence interval meaning more precision (2)

traits

characteristic behaviors and feelings that are consistent and long lasting (5)

hypothesis

a tentative and testable explanation of the relationship between two (or more) events or variables; often stated as a prediction that a certain outcome will result from specific conditions (4)

etiology

the causes of, or factors related to, the development of a disorder (4)

comorbid (co-morbidity)

the presence of one or more diseases or conditions other than those of primary interest (2)